Ancestry/Genealogy

I nearly got suckered this past weekend when I was searching out a particular branch of the family tree...specifically, Sarah Allen, whose family was killed in the Deerfield (MA) massacre.

She was kidnapped and brought to Kaughnawaga, where she was turned over to a merchant for domestic work, but five years later married Guillaume Lalonde, and was baptized with a French name, had 13 children and forever lived as a French Canadian woman.

Anyway, some people had her line going back to Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I was thrilled...until I started really examining the "evidence".

Well, one of her "Allen ancestors" was, supposedly, a Cardinal of the Catholic church! But from him down there was no real evidence of any children, although going backward, his line did appear to reach back to royalty.

I'm so glad I checked this out before announcing to my family that we were related to Kings and Queens.

As it turned out, her grandfather was not born in England. He was born in Scotland, and most likely changed his name from Aluinn to Allen.

You really have to be careful...also what I notice a lot is that people will have ancestors in their trees and their parents are listed beneath them (the part where you can click to add people to your tree) but the parents' dates of birth are years after the birth of their alleged children. I saw one the other day where the kids were born in the 1500s and the "parents" were listed with birthdates in the 1800s.

Crazy! I would rather have the truth, even if it means my ancestors are NOT royalty.